White Heron

When asked if she had any favorite stories Eudora Welty would always say that her favorite was the one she was working on. But if the interviewer insisted she would often mention "A Still Moment" a story which was published in her collection The Wide Net and Other Stories (1943). It is about an imaginative meeting of three historical figures Lorenzo Dow, John James Auduborn and James Murell the Bandit. It is a very unusual story. There is a bird all the three see - it is a white heron. The heron in the story is snowy white, it is solitary and it feeds beside the marsh water. The time of the day is sunset and the bird is sen by the three in its serene, shy beauty. "But before them the white heron rested in the grass with the evening all around it, lighter and more serene than the evening, flight closed in its body, the circuit of its beauty closed, a bird seen and a bird still, its motion calm as if it were offered: Take my flight..." It seemed to me that this picture taken by Eric Lincoln is a perfect embodiment of what Eudora Welty described.